Sunday, 1 February 2015

Winter 2014/15: Crick 9


Sunday 18th January to Monday 2nd February

 Tuesday 20th January

 I now have a new iPphone, the same as I bought Wifey for Christmas, a Samsung Galaxy Young 2. This is so much better than the Nokia Lumia 630 that I upgraded to a few months ago, because it’s not a Windows phone and therefore not tied to Microsoft. There’s nothing wrong with Microsoft I suppose, but I had so much trouble accessing and downloading apps, that I eventually gave up on it.

 A couple of years ago, at the behest of that ‘nasty’ brother of mine, I upgraded my old flip-top phone for a touch screen phone and, every time I touched the screen to scroll up or down, the darned thing would go to the item I had touched; most annoying. Anyway, I phoned the 02 shop and explained my predicament and asked what I could do about it. The answer rather surprised me, because I was told to sell it, which I did, to a company that buys these things. Alright, so I still had to pay for it through my 02 contract, but at least I got rid of the thing.

 The point I am making here is that, now that I’ve bought a better phone I can now sell on the Nokia, but this time I’ll list it on eBay.

 On Sunday morning we took a drive over to Tesco at Junction 1 and bought the above mentioned mobile, SIM Free of course. Wifey’s one is tied to Tesco; which uses the 02 signal, but ‘roams for others if the 02 one is not available. It cost a bit more than I paid for her one, but that’s probably because they were selling them cheaper for the Christmas season.

 Of course, come lunchtime we were safely ensconced in the local club, in the company of Alex, naturally.

 Yesterday was too cold to go anywhere, and today is even colder, but we might just take the bus into Rugby and pay a visit to the ‘3’ shop. Sometimes when I’m online and flittering about between eBay pages or similar, I get this web page from ‘3’ pop up, which suggests my Internet signal is a bit weak. The trouble is, I can’t log in to my account at ‘3’, simply because I don’t know how.

 This website recognises me when I do attempt to log in, because it welcomes me with a ‘hi David’ at the top of the screen. The problem seems to be because I don’t have a mobile phone account with them, only my WiFi unit and the login info asks for my telephone number; which was allocated to me when I first signed up and which I’ve never used. It also asks for the last six digits on the back of my SIM card, which I obviously don’t have, since I don’t have a ‘3’ phone.

 So, with all that in mind, and not wishing to run up a phone bill by calling them on my 02 mobile, I’ll have to pay them a visit in order to find out how to log in to my account. Yeah, long-winded I know, but at least it kept me busy on the laptop, and I’ve succeeded in typing two pages of gumpf!

 Friday 23rd January

 I recently scanned through eBay, looking for finger picks to use with the uke and guitar. I found an interesting one that advertised metal picks that fit over the fingers and thumb and nestle up against the finger/thumb nail. They seemed to be just what I was looking for, so I sent for them. They took a while to get here because they came from China. Sadly the only one that fit was the thumb pick, the others were too small.

 Anyway, I contacted the seller and explained the problem and he replied asking for a photo of my hand and measurements of my finger and has promised to send a couple more thumb picks, which I can adjust downwards in size to fit my fingers. Now, that’s what I call a great after sales service.

 I called into the ‘Three’ shop earlier this week and asked how I could access my account online. They thought this should be an easy matter, until they realised that I only had a WiFi account and no mobile phone with them. Their only suggestion was that, if I still had the box that came with it, I could download an app and run my iPhone over that Sudoku type black and white picture and access my account from there.

 But, I don’t still have the box! If we kept all the boxes from items we had bought we’d need a butty dragged behind the boat. So, anyway I went back to the ‘Three’ site and tried again. It seems though that the only way to contact ‘Three’ is to phone them on a premium rate line. If I had a ‘Three’ phone it would cost me nothing. I finally gave up on this quest and have written to them asking why, just because I don’t have mobile with them, I am unable to access my account. I’m hoping they will email me with an answer, but I’m not holding my breath.

Today, just for something to do, we’ll be taking the bus into Rugby.

 Saturday 24th January

 Yesterday was the first day in living memory when we haven’t had to race around Rugby, do our shopping and catch the next bus home, only an hour after arriving there. This time we only needed to visit Asda for a small amount of shopping, which gave us plenty of time for a coffee before strolling over to the bus stop.

 I received a message from the eBay dealer this morning, advising me that he had been unwell and apologising for the delay in answering my last message. He also suggested that, should I require any other items he has up for sale, then he could package that and the thumb picks together. I suspect he’s worried about eBay’s reaction to him selling off-site, if they ever found out. Alternatively he’s simply pulling a fast one and hoping I’ll spend more money with him. So, the question is, ‘will he send them or not?’ Hmmmm!!

 We don’t have anything special to do today, except perhaps getting some coal, so we’ll probably take a walk up to the Co-op for the paper and milk. Oh what an exciting life we lead!!

 Sunday 25th January

 The Fuzz paid the marina a visit yesterday and attended a boat further along the same pontoon as we’re moored at. Goodness knows what they were after, but there were three of them and they had two cars in the car park. If somebody has had their boat broken into, I feel sure they would have spoken to everyone on this pontoon, if only to ask if we had seen anything suspicious. No doubt the local grapevine will filter down to us in due course.

 And that was the extent of our excitement yesterday.

 Today? Well, it’s Sunday. I think you can guess how that will go!!

 Tuesday 27th January

 About six months ago I upgraded my mobile phone, from a flip-top basic one to a pretty Windows iPhone. Having realised my mistake, after spending hours with Alan trying to access the Internet with it, I finally decided to buy a different phone; in fact the same a Wifey’s; and sell the Nokia Lumia 630. Yesterday morning I listed the Nokia on eBay and was most surprised when, later in the day I received confirmation of the sale. Naturally I posted it off straight away.

 Having experienced such success I am now going to be taking photos of other stuff I want to sell and hoping to make a few bob. This will all help towards trading in the Alfa for something more sedate; like a Merc or a Jag; but I haven’t quite decided which yet.

 Thursday 29th January

 We took the bus into Rugby yesterday to pay a visit to Ryman’s for packing boxes and found just two that would meet our needs. So far I’ll be able to post off a couple of old cameras.

 I also have a very old Yashica half-frame 35mm camera and, since it doesn’t have a user manual with it, I took a quick look online and managed to download a .pdf copy. This item will make it much easier to sell, I think.

 Friday 30th January

 We had to go to Northampton yesterday and the weather stayed fine for the couple of hours there. But, later in the day we had a pretty heavy fall of snow, which gets Alex running around like a loony. He really can be quite a laugh at times. Last night we had even more snow and I’m hoping we don’t get any more today, because I’m supposed to be going down to Harlow tomorrow.

 We also need to go shopping today, so I’m hoping the roads will be clear. The weather has been worse further north, so I guess we should be grateful for that.

 You will probably remember the problem I am having in accessing my ‘Three’ account online. The trip to their shop in Rugby and emailing the company, well, I received a reply from the a few days ago advising me on how to log in. In short they told me to go to their home site and click on the Inbox, where I would find a password. Of course, knowing these people of old, there was no Inbox and therefore no password. However, there was a New Message icon at the top of the screen but, as you would have guessed, I was required to log in before I could read it. Here we go again.

 So, I have now sent another email and have attached two screen shots of their Home Page and the Log in Box. Maybe they will sort it out from there, who knows? But I’m not holding my breath.

 Monday 2nd February

 I can now access my account at ‘Three’, thanks to a recent email from them. It seems that the User Name of ‘admin’ was also the Password, but they hadn’t made that clear in the earlier email. Anyway I’m now good to go.

 So, now to the weekend, when I should have been going down to Harlow, well, due to adverse weather conditions I didn’t make it. We had snow on Friday and some of Saturday, and then it miraculously cleared, by which time it was too late to change my mind. From then on it was a normal weekend; a bit of shopping Saturday and the club on Sunday.

 Just for a change though, we met up with Annie and Dave; who have a boat moored along our pontoon; and we had a nice chat with them. Also, and much to our surprise, the club filled up pretty quickly, which is quite unusual for a Sunday lunchtime. This is probably because people had been paid at the end of the month and could now afford to splash out. It did make a pleasant change to hear so many voices around us.

 This morning is probably the coldest we’ve had this winter. Indeed, it was so cold in the boat that I put the heater on at 5 am. It will be something of a job to de-ice the car this morning, and that’s for sure.

 So, that’s another week over, the lady who bought my Nokia for her daughter is well chuffed, and so is her daughter as it’s her first mobile phone. We still haven’t discovered why the police were here a few days ago, but there’s still time for that. Hopefully I’ll get down to Harlow next Saturday, because I really do need to bring Alan’s HiFi unit back and transfer some vinyl to CD.

 And that’s it for now.

 Take care folks.

 Dave, Sheila and Alex.

 

 

 

 

 

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